{"id":78391,"date":"2018-03-22T10:27:16","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T14:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=78391"},"modified":"2018-03-22T10:27:16","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T14:27:16","slug":"uss-ralph-johnson-to-be-commissioned-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=78391","title":{"rendered":"USS Ralph Johnson to be commissioned Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Clay sends us the news<\/a> that USS Ralph Johnson. an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, has arrived in Charleston, South Carolina for it’s commissioning ceremony on Saturday. The destroyer is named for Charleston native Marine Private First Class Ralph Johnson<\/a> who sacrificed his life for those of his Marine Corps brothers when he shielded them from a grenade blast with his body;<\/p>\n

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In the early morning hours of Mar. 5, 1968 during Operation ROCK, Private First Class Johnson and his 15-man reconnaissance patrol manned an observation post on Hill 146 overlooking the Quan Duc Duc Valley deep in enemy controlled territory. They were attacked by a platoon-size hostile force employing automatic weapons, satchel charges and hand grenades.<\/p>\n

As the enemy raced up the hill, a hand grenade landed in the three-man fighting hole occupied by Pfc. Johnson and two fellow Marines. Realizing the danger to his comrades, Pfc. Johnson shouted a warning and willingly hurled himself upon the explosive device.<\/p>\n

When the grenade exploded, Pfc. Johnson absorbed the impact of the blast and was killed instantly. His heroic act saved the life of a fellow Marine at the cost of his own and prevented the enemy from penetrating his sector of the patrol\u2019s perimeter.<\/p>\n

Pfc. Johnson was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The VA hospital in Charleston also bears his most honorable name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clay sends us the news that USS Ralph Johnson. an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, has arrived in Charleston, South Carolina for it’s commissioning ceremony on Saturday. The destroyer is named for Charleston native Marine Private First Class Ralph Johnson who sacrificed his life for those of his Marine Corps brothers when he shielded them from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-navy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Ralph-Johnson.jpg?fit=257%2C360&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-kon","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}